Where do I begin? It starts at the top. Leadership in this company is absolutely abysmal. From CEO down to EVP, SVP, directors and alike - the wrong people are making decisions. Don’t be fooled either, a director title used to mean something but not at Truecar. They hand out director titles to lazy and unqualified individuals like Oprah hands out gift bags. The message has been made clear by the organization - unless you’re in Santa Monica or best friends with The SVPs or EVP you have no place at Truecar. The rest of the organization is replaceable and they’ll let you know that regardless of your work ethic and performance. For years they have elevated individuals who consistently run their business units into the ground. Not to mention “key acquisitions” and partnerships that amount to no profit and major losses. But sure, let’s give you the keys to more areas of the company to screw up.
HR is a mess. Don’t ever think they’ll have your back. They only want to protect the company from a lawsuit. Employees are not a top priority. They were aware of relationships between leaders and reports and never did anything about it. The recruiting team doesn’t even notify internal applicants of progress or outcomes so don’t expect any response as an external applicant if you are waiting.
The product is antiquated and stale. For years they’ve had tech engineers with capabilities to make necessary adjustments, but here’s leadership coming around the corner to reinvent the wheel again.
The marketing team is clueless on who their target audience and demographic is. Just because you let a 6 year old fill in some letters and call it a new logo, does not mean you’re going to somehow make more money.
The company has been through two layoffs in the last 2.5 years and the only employees impacted are the ones who provide quality work. The fraternity is real at Truecar. There were more promotions after the layoff than at any point during my tenure at Truecar. It’s not a good look to fire 70% of your staff and then start handing out new titles and pay increases like Halloween candy.
The only outcome for Truecar is to go back to becoming a privately owned company or to sell to someone who actually knows what they’re doing. If you see a job opening here, run, don’t walk as fast as you can. You may make some money for a little while but in the end none of it will matter.
Until every single member of ELT has been fired and new, competent individuals take over, this 15 year old “startup company” is the last place you want to work.
Hell, even the CFO they hired ran away within a year because of the hot mess he inherited when he came on board.
